Derek Ridgers (born 20 October 1950) is a British photographer known for his photography of music, film and club/street culture. He has photographed people including James Brown, the Spice Girls, Clint Eastwood and Johnny Depp, as well as politicians (Tony Blair), gangsters (Freddie Foreman), artists (Julian Schnabel), writers (Martin Amis), fashion designers (John Galliano) and sports people (Tiger Woods). Ridgers has also photographed British social scenes such as skinhead, fetish, club, punk and New Romantic. He has worked for Time Out, The Sunday Telegraph, NME, The Face, Loaded, The Independent on Sunday, The Guardian, The Observer, The Sunday Times, The Independent, GQ, GQ Style, Melody Maker and Sounds. Early life Born in Chiswick, west London, Derek Ridgers trained as a graphic artist at Ealing School of Art between 1967 and 1971, where one of his fellow students was Freddie Mercury. Ridgers' love of music led him to attend many live events of the time, one of which was The 14 Hour Technicolour Dream. Following art school, Ridgers went into advertising, where he worked as an art director for ten years. One of his clients was a camera company and he picked up the product and gave it a try. When he parted with the agency he decided to take up photography. One of the first concerts at which he took photos was by Ron Wood, Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend at the Finsbury Park Rainbow, on 13 January 1973. Professional career The emergence of punk rock in the late 1970s fascinated Ridgers. Among his first published work were pictures taken on a second-hand Nikkormat, bought as a cheap camera to take to punk nights at the Hammersmith Palais. Ridgers used a flash on a home-made bracket. During this time he photographed a very early Adam and the Ants, the Slits, Penetration, the Clash and the Damned. He had an exhibition at the ICA in 1978. After leaving advertising to become a professional photographer, Ridgers began working for music and style magazines such as NME and The Face. Ridgers' early photography of skinheads led to several situations where he was personally at risk from some of them until he became accepted as an observer. They were approachable and friendly. Many of these photographs were later collected in the book Skinheads (2010). Morrissey used one of Ridgers' skinhead portraits during his Your Arsenal tour. As well as being used on the tour